


Meadowsweet

by WhereTheMoonShinesBright



Series: Out Of My Hands [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Coping Mechanisms, M/M, PTSD, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Relationship, pre-release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19801162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhereTheMoonShinesBright/pseuds/WhereTheMoonShinesBright
Summary: Linhardt would have never considered himself violent. He was reasonably sure that no one else would either. But remembering the soldiers that fell before him, he figured that he must be.He had killed, and he had injured, and he had done both enough that he could feel the difference between a lethal and non-lethal blow before the command had traveled past his tongue.





	Meadowsweet

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry to say the two things I've published are actually just chapters of a whole ass fanfic I wrote, and I refuse to release more than brief excerpts since this game isn't even out yet. Pleasantly surprised to see most of my ideas are canon accurate so far. As my beta reader keeps saying, future proof.

War had somehow become a normal exercise to Linhardt in a very short a mount of time. He had never considered himself violent, though he supposed now watching soldiers fall before him, that he must be.

That wasn’t what was truly troubling him at the moment, however.  The trouble was the men that they were facing. 

It had been a shock to see Hubert and Ferdinand across enemy lines. Even if he had kept a particular disdain for Ferdinand, he had never disliked them. They were comrades, friends. Or at least they had been. 

Now they were face to face, opposite each other on the field of combat. Ferdinand did not save the same amount of consideration for Linhardt. Insults were thrown as easily as javelins, tossed without the hope of return. 

It was surprisingly easy to dodge Ferdinand’s attacks, and every miss seemed to make his next move more reckless. 

He saw the opening, saw his own hesitation. If he attacked it would almost certainly kill Ferdinand, if he didn’t… 

But he let the book's page fall open, and let the magic gather at his finger tips.

His back hit the ground before the spell could follow through. He had been carelessly tossed from his position, and Ferdinand’s horse cried as a soft thud fell adjacent to himself. When the world stopped spinning above him, Byleth’s hand came into focus. Linhardt did not need to think before reaching for it and letting it help him to his feet. 

He looked to where Ferdinand had fallen, clutching a wound at his forearm that was soaking rapidly through his shirt. His steed had abandoned him in the commotion, leaving him alone. He knew what happened after this, Ferdinand would be asked to accept surrender and he probably wouldn’t. Maybe Hubert would. 

Linhardt wouldn’t consider the possibility that neither of them would call for surrender. Not for the time being. 

——

Claude never said whether or not they had surrendered, only that they had somehow escaped the fight and ordered their remaining men and those who could still walk to retreat. The camp was emptier than it had been after the other fights. The Adrestian men that remained were surprised to see their wounds tended for. Some outright refused the attendance of a healer, even if they were in grievous condition. Often times they were healed anyways, and they cursed and swore as their skin knit together and their pallor returned. It was a wonder that it seemed easier for some of them to accept death than to accept the shame of living. 

Linhardt could not pretend to understand.  
  
He could not pretend he didn’t understand, either.

——

Linhardt would have never considered himself violent. He was reasonably sure that no one else would either. But remembering the soldiers that fell before him, he figured that he must be. 

He had killed, and he had injured, and he had done both enough that he could feel the difference between a lethal and non-lethal blow before the command had traveled past his tongue. 

He was not blind to the implications of battle. The logical conclusion of changing sides would be to fight against those he had once thought of as friends. He still felt the magic at his finger tips, the blow that would have killed Ferdinand if…

But it hadn’t killed Ferdinand. It had dissipated back into latency. Maybe that is why he still felt it. He had hesitated touching nearly everything since the battle’s end. 

Now, he sat among his troop, feeling far afield from everyone. Dismissed himself. No one paid him much mind as he left. 

Campfires would dot the camp as the night carried on, surrounded by laughter or tears, sometimes singing, and sometimes all three. It was still too early in the night for the commotion, but he wondered if he could find a fire near his tent for just a moment.  


——

The nearest fire turned out to be the one in front of Claude’s pavilion. Much like he had expected, none of the former Golden Deer had gathered around yet. There was one person left in attendance at the fire pit. 

Byleth did not seem to notice as Linhardt stepped forth, eyes dancing with the light, and face starting to flush from standing too close. Linhardt cleared his throat in greeting, and Byleth’s eyes darted up immediately. “Good evening, professor.”

“Good evening,” Byleth greeted, eyes returning to the fire. 

That was one of the things that had always annoyed him. Byleth was calm and collected, but unintentionally rude in the strangest ways. He had joked about appreciating it before, but the ready dismissal carved into him in a way he couldn’t explain.

“I keep thinking about Ferdinand,” and Caspar, and Edelgard. But the only name that passed his lips was Ferdinand.

The thoughts rose in his mind and up to his throat before he could consider their motive. Maybe it was in a bid to retain Byleth's attention; Maybe there was still some desperate strain in him that believed the professor did, in fact, have an answer to everything. 

“He called you a traitor.” A log fell, and the fire's refuse drifted up to the sky in glittering response.  
  
“That’s not what’s bothering me. I would have killed him,” he admitted. “I didn’t think I had any other choice. I was going to kill him, or he was going to kill me.”  
  
“But you didn’t kill him,” Byleth suggested. “Do you remember what happened afterwards?”

Linhardt nodded.

“It’s something my father taught me when I was younger,” Byleth’s voice was more expressive than his face, and it filled with an eerie fondness. “To think of the entire action instead of just the part that gets stuck in your mind.” 

It did not work so well. The bright burning feeling immolated him, almost as though he would have been the subject to the spell instead. 

“Was it difficult for you, cutting down Edelgard and Dimitri,” he asked. Somehow the image was replaced by Caspar falling on the field, and the sound of Ferdinand’s rage. It tasted bitter as it left this tongue.  


“I have been doing this for a long time. I thought when I reached the academy that it would be over for the most part.” Finally, relenting. “No. If you’re lucky, it remains just as difficult.”

He heard the beat of hooves, saw the lack of recognition in Ferdinand’s eyes. The spell would have cooked him through, given him the fate Caspar had avoided. “That doesn’t seem lucky.”

“If you want to live after a battle is over, its helpful to remember the value of life.”

Linhardt nodded, if he looked into the fire it hurt his eyes, if he looked over at Byleth the fire was still reflected there. He had not realized that Byleth had been looking at him. 

He realized he might have placed himself under some expectation. That maybe Byleth was looking for a response, or a thought. However, Byleth did not interrupt the silence between them. It was one thing Linhardt was learning to like about him. 

But he did not need or particularly want silence right now, even without the ghost hanging over him like it had been.

“What was it like, when you were younger?”

Byleth’s face seemed soft in the firelight. Since the first conversation it was something that had become more and more frequent. “There are some things I wish I remembered better, and others I wish I didn’t remember at all.” 

“Like what,” he had not quite said it as a question. 

There was a considerate hum from Byleth’s position, “It’s difficult somehow to think of things you don't remember very well.”

The fire crackled between them for a moment. “I wish I remembered things from the Academy better, like the way the stone smelled after the rain. Every now and then the smell catches my attention in other place, but it’s not quite the same.”

Linhardt let his eyes fall shut. He could imagine the smell if he focused on it. He could remember hiding in one of the courtyard trees to rest, before a light shower passed through. It seemed so distant, and foreign when paired with the scent of the fire in front of him. “It was a very specific scent.” He wanted to fall asleep, but every single synapse was on fire. “What else?”

There was another lapse between them. “One of the mercenaries who used to work for my father would go around with me so I could walk along the river that flowed through the town when we stopped to pick up new jobs. These plants grew there, with clumps of flowers that looked like clouds. You could eat them, and I remember liking them but I can’t remember their name or how they taste.”

“Dandelions?” Linhardt offered after a moment. 

Byleth let out a single exhalation of laughter. “No, I don’t think I could forget dandelions.”

Linhardt hummed, “Carrot, maybe.”

“Still a bit too on the nose, I think.”  
  
“Lily of the Valley.”  
  
“Lily of the Valley is poisonous.”  
  
“Not that one, then.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

The smile was readily present on Byleth’s face now, small and all too easily shattered. Linhardt felt some warmth bloom in himself as well, but it wasn’t quite enough to ready more than a brief puff of amusement.

“What about this then,” Byleth continued. “What about this moment do you want to remember?”

Linhardt remembered his previous observations. The laughing and singing, the crying. The smell of the fire. He could not pick a single thing out, and then he looked where Byleth stood and his mind lingered a moment too long. His throat caught for a moment at the realization, what this was turning into. What the feeling was and how many other feelings he needed to clear out first. 

He turned back to the fire. “I guess I like the way the air lifts up some of the embers, like lightning bugs.”

He let the thought pull through his mind again, and again, until it was the truth and he could erase any trace of Byleth that had once been there. 

——

Only a day had passed, but when the warmth settled back into Linhardt’s chest, it felt as though he had been waiting for it to return for years. He paused a moment before opening his tent, felt the aura of the battle field, felt the phantom feeling of lightning at his finger tips. And then he remembered the way the sun felt on his face, filtering from the trees near the academy. He remembered Ferdinand’s attentions to Edelgard, and how Caspar would think the competitions in good humor and try to join in. He thought of his conversation with Byleth, the sternness of his face melted away. 

He forced himself to bury Ferdinand’s screams underneath those memories, and forced the shake out of his hand. 

He would spend his life trying to figure out how to forgive himself for the things he had done.

And someday, maybe he could stop doing things he needed to forgive himself for. 

**Author's Note:**

> Want to talk to me? Want to cry with me?  
> Send me a message at  
> notsosecretfanboy.tumblr.com  
> Or  
> @ChinUpKing on twitter


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